Ephesians 1: “He chose us to be in Him” or “He chose us in Him?”

Suppose there are two football coaches living there in your hometown, Coach Calvin and Coach Hobbs. Coach Calvin is in a league where he pre-selects and compels each player to be on his team.

Coach Hobbs is in a league where he invites who ever wants to play football to join his team voluntarily. However, one thing they both have in common is that prior to the teams being formed both coaches had predetermined to conform their team members into well conditioned and trained football players.

Calvinists insist Ephesians 1 teaches that God is like “Coach Calvin” but all the text actually states is what the coach has predetermined for his team to become, it says nothing about his predetermining who would and would not be on the team (i.e. “in Him”).

The first chapter of Ephesians is another hotly contested passage regarding…

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8 thoughts on “Ephesians 1: “He chose us to be in Him” or “He chose us in Him?””

Not wanting to duplicate comments from the last discussion of this blog post, I will just share this thought. Has anybody else considered what a particularly useless bit of information being ‘chosen’ is, IF, as the Calvinist’s claim, God ‘chose’ us before the foundation of the world without any reference to being “chosen in Him”. It gives us no information as to who may be on this ‘list’ or indeed even if people ‘were’ on the list. Some of our spiritual heros may actually have not been on this list and we just didn’t know it. Nor presumably did they. It is actually just a useless piece of non-information. in reality it’s says absolutely nothing!

To those who see scripture telling us that Jesus is actually the chosen one and that all those who come to faith in him are therefore ‘chosen in Him’ this verse is a great help. We know that we are ‘chosen’, not because we are special but simply because we have responded in faith and repentance to the call of God.

There are some Calvinists who try to argue that they too can see that they are chosen because they have responded in faith. But this is only double speaking on their part. They cannot take up a position which says that people respond because they have been chosen prior to that response and then also justify their response on the basis of their having already been chosen. That is the circularity argument of Calvinism par excellence.

They way Paul uses the phrase ‘in Him’ makes it clear that only those who are believers are said to be ‘in Him’. It makes very little sense to then say that people were chosen ‘in Him’ before the foundation of the world. Unless they also believe that they are born into this world ‘in Him’. In which case they cannot and indeed would not want to be “born again”.

Jon Payne: This came up as an alert on my system so I’m not sure if your request refers to my comments or ‘the’ article. For my part I’m happy. Attribute it to me if you don’t mind the association 😉 as far as the whole article goes, I guess you should ask Leighton. Can’t see him saying no though. 🙂

Definitely one of the top three favorite Calvinist texts that must be explained contextually and according to reason and normal grammar choices.

I think it is normal to see Paul as speaking anachronistically in Eph 1:4. Any Christian Jew could say – “We were chosen in Abraham before Israel became a nation to possess the land of Canaan in the Millennium.” He would not be emphasizing being chosen as an individual back when Abraham lived, he would be speaking anachronistically, emphasizing the blessing that awaits in the future.

That is what Paul is saying. The blessing is not being chosen TO BE in Christ before creation, the blessing is being chosen in Christ before creation TO BE holy and blameless before God in the future.
For logically no-one but members of the Godhead existed to be chosen before creation.

If one says – in God’s prescience the choice took place, I think one eventually has to admit that it is anthropomorphism that supports his language… for in Calvinism no real choice takes place in God’s mind from someone being unchosen to chosen. For all is eternally set in God’s mind in their view.

I choose to see anachronism at play in this verse rather than wholesale anthropomorphism that overturns the normal understanding of Scripture and reality in a contradictory manner.

Brian, I think the other main point people tend to gloss over is that Israel was never ‘chosen’ for salvation but to bring salvation to the world. This is precisely why Paul is able to quote that not all Israel are of Israel in Romans because nobody has ever been chosen for salvation on the basis of God’s choice alone. It’s always down to the individual to express faith in God.